


Tempest

by silver_fish



Series: tip jar requests [5]
Category: What Rises From the Depths - K.A. Crystal
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, I hope lol, Pre-Canon, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: Who isDiana Carter, and how is she going to comebackfrom this?
Series: tip jar requests [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180832
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Tempest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/gifts).



> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> FINALLY...i did all my research to the best of my ability and finally just sat down to write this thing. i know you said "right after" she leaves but i'm a fool and i didn't do that and also i love endric so ending on that note was just me appreciating him really. so anyway ok...chapter 15...with the storm...i guess that stuck out to me, because my brain was like !! MOTIF !! and here we are ashjdfghdjgfhj so basically i...really hope that it's not crazy ooc or that my decision to set it in canon verse was not an exceptionally bad one. i almost feel like i should've waited another month to see what happens next because i am really getting the sense that this plot point is really rising up (haha. RISING. what rises. yeah. anyway) but i also...have made you wait long enough and i wanted to get this done so! i here it is. i hope you like it!
> 
> for anyone ELSE reading this, these lovely characters are from _what rises from the depths_ by k.a. crystal. it's still being serialized, but new chapters pop up once a month and each one has been great. i highly recommend it! for more info, check it out [here](https://twitter.com/krisseywrites/status/1329238277501702145?s=20)!

In the middle of an ocean storm, there is no time to think.

Everything happens so quickly, and only those who are able to react fast enough will evade the threat of being lost to the maelstrom. But it is a sort of organized chaos, like—everything happens so quickly, but those who react need someone to tell them _how_ to react, lest they find their next step fall directly into the bitter swell of the sea.

This is Diana’s job, in a sense. She’s gotten good at it, too, telling people what to do in order to keep them safe. It is essential for a captain to know all that is happening on her deck, because it is the only way she can make decisions to protect her crew and her ship and even herself. She has prided herself on this for many years, this _knowing_ ; it is why she knows, too, that she _is_ worthy of the title.

She used to know it, at least.

But amidst all that disarray, there is always a chance that something will slip from her attention. And only when it is over will she notice. Only when it is over will she be able to look over what she did and see within it all that she failed to do.

The thing is, it is her duty. She lives to serve and protect those in subordination to her. Herself, she was certainly not made to be subservient: she carries with her _power_ and _ambition_ , all the admirable qualities symptomatic of a good leader, but—

On top of that, she carries with her the knowledge that she has failed before, and if she does not redeem herself from this, she will do so again.

And again.

And again.

What she missed, she cannot get back. There is no way to twist the hands of the clock and tell herself to look _this_ way, because the time has already passed. She has already failed.

And even if she could go back, she doesn’t know if she would be able to make herself do it anyway.

After the storm has passed, there is a long calm, a harmonious stretch of dizzied relief while the crew celebrates their passage through it. But it is the burden of their commander to see all she could have done differently to minimize whatever damage they _did_ sustain. There is no compliment to be accepted; the only thanks deserved is to those who had to pull through everything to protect their comrades.

Diana is not one of them.

Storms at sea are different than those experienced on land. They are more vicious, downright violent, because the sea is where storms make their home: chaos finds comfort in chaos, and once they have had their destructive intercourse, they gentle out. The breeze is a little kinder, the sun a little warmer, and the tides lull ships along a smooth, soothing course.

Diana doesn’t know which of them was the sea and which was the storm, because it doesn’t matter; the only thing that does is that she found blinding strength in his unhinged power,

her crew got hurt,

and it is all her fault.

~

Chelsaline is nine years old. She’s a smart kid: she loves to read, has a sharp tongue, witty and wry, and she _notices_ things.

But Diana will not let her notice this.

Perhaps, in some sense, Chelsaline is a reminder of what she knows now was her biggest mistake. More than that, then, she must be a reminder of what Diana has to do next, to make sure some kind of _justice_ is served.

(Or is it just to assuage herself of all this guilt, filling her lungs like the storm’s saltwater spray?)

She does not _want_ to pull her daughter into this. Does not want her to have to live unrooted because of all the things her mother has done wrong. There was a time—far, far in the past—that Diana believed herself a good role model. If she asked Mordecai, he might even agree with her. He might even say she still is, but she looks at Chelsaline and she is certain—

It is not true, not yet.

She is thinking of her father’s cruelty, of harshness he could harness for Diana’s sake—did he, though? In her worst moments, she fears that she became so adjusted to being hurt that she let it happen to the ones she swore to protect because _she_ liked the feeling of it—and she does not know if she holds within her the kindness necessary to drain it from their lives.

No matter how she spins it in her head, her path remains the same. She cannot let this sit, cannot let Ford drift away on the current like she herself did for ten years. Whoever she was before, she doesn’t remember that woman, and she will not ask anyone who would, because she does not want to know. Who is _Diana Carter_ , captain, mother, naval officer

(blind fool, poor role model, _failure_ )

and how is she going to come _back_ from this?

The nature of the sea is a violent one. It takes force and flings force back at it. That is what keeps ships moving, in fact; if not for the vehement ocean waves, there would be no direction at sea. Maybe Ford thought so too, and that is why he became the way he did—or was he always that way? She wants to believe he wasn’t, but each day there is something new, something else she remembers, a little moment that she failed to analyze and is now reaping the consequences of—but Diana sees more clearly than ever now that the best time to sail is when the tide is calm. During a storm, they can’t think about _where_ they are going, only that wherever they veer to it is safer than where the gale-force guides them.

“Survival mode,” that’s what they call it. Never mind what happens, as long as you _live_ through it.

The storm is over, but Chelsaline remains. Frantic to keep her safe, Diana cannot think of what she might notice, as long as it is not the seed her father planted beneath once-impenetrable honour. She is a smart kid, though. The longer time goes on, the larger Diana’s desperation grows, the more obvious it must become:

She is scared, and she is angry, and she wants revenge, but whose vengeance is she really trying to fulfill?

~

What she comes to is good. She builds a family atop the Gemini, and they inspire her. She is a proud member of the navy. It is her duty to protect people.

But Chelsaline is stuck, and Ford is unreachable, and the pins and needles of her past do not numb with time at all.

Each day that has passed since then has brought her to this better place: a clearer head, a firmer grounding, a citable source for the confidence she has reconstructed out of a caved-in _love_ , that is—love of a person, or love of his power, or love of the feelings she has never been able to wholly dissociate from him, the father of her daughter?

No, it is not true. She has learned that if she does not want Chelsaline to notice, then nobody else can notice either. If she ever cried about it, then she doesn’t anymore. If she ever found herself stuck in her own head, repeating mistakes back to herself like an order penned by her own commander, then she doesn’t anymore. If she ever thought that she is not a woman worth listening to, or respecting, or loving, because she looks at herself and sees her own veins like tendrils of guilt from the thing he sewed beneath an empty, broken heart, then she doesn’t anymore.

Each day that has passed since then has brought her to this better place: conviction, determination, a thirst for recompense or revenge, it does not matter, they have come to mean the same thing.

For her crew, she is attentive during the storms they pass through. She stands tall before them, a figure of authority who will not hurt them because she does not need to hurt them to be strong. She is a tempest, and she has learned control, because she does not have the manipulative hands of the sea grabbing her by her foundations, pulling her down into disorder.

But on her own, she is none of this. She is scared, and she is angry, and she wants revenge, but she is horribly sick of _hurting_ all the time, lost as she is. She needs a message, a sign, something to deliver back to her the hope that one day she can be worthy of being Diana Carter, captain, mother, naval officer, whoever she is meant to be.

It is for the people he hurt—those he has hurt since they parted—and it is for Chelsaline and it is for her crew now, because they deserve a captain who does not have this sort of bitter stain hidden beneath her sleeve.

But days turn to months turn to years. Chelsaline is getting older. She notices more and more, and Diana has to hold it closer to her, sat within her heavy chest next to this eager prayer where none can see it but herself. She wakes under an oath uttered years ago and sleeps above the guidance of the sea in the hope it will have her found by the divine deliverer of the sign she is seeking.

Eventually, it does:

His name is Endric Inuusuttoq, and Asdyne saved his life.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> (p.s. catch me on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) or tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com) for writing updates. i also sometimes take writing requests on both!)


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